Cheap AI voice tools are being sold to criminals, and a call that sounds like your family may not be them. Here is what to know and what to watch for.
A phone call from your spouse, your grandmother or a close friend may not be from them at all. Scammers are buying cheap AI tools that copy a person's voice, then using it to ask for money, codes and personal details. In one dark web listing found by NordVPN, access to a voice cloning service cost just $8.
Fake voices used to sound a little off. That is over, according to Marijus Briedis, chief technology officer at security company NordVPN. "Some years ago, a cloned voice had something slightly off about it, and most people could hear it. That is gone now," he said.
The tools are also easier to get. Voice cloning is now sold as one feature inside "scam kits," which experts say can include hacked accounts on legitimate AI services, stolen personal data and more. NordVPN found a hacked ElevenLabs account with unlimited voice cloning for sale for $150. An ElevenLabs API key, which lets software use the service, was going for $8.
The money is already large. Americans lost about $148.2 billion to digital crimes in 2025, up more than 25 percent from the year before. NordVPN also reports that sales pitches for voice cloning services rose sevenfold in two years on dark web forums and Telegram channels.
Because the tools are cheap, criminals do not need to be skilled. "When anyone can run the attack, volume becomes the strategy," Briedis said. "No single attempt has to be perfect. There just have to be a lot of them."
Anyone with a phone can get one of these calls. Older relatives and families are obvious targets, since the scripts play on worry: a car accident, a jail bail request, or a grandparent locked out of an account. Scammers also pose as banks, insurers and payment apps. One TikTok video, with more than 450,000 views, tells of a mother nearly fooled by a fake of her own mother's voice. She was caught only because the grandmother had died.
Experts told Mashable that any demand for money over the phone is suspicious. Other warning signs go beyond a plain request for cash:
The steps are in the alert box above. The idea behind them is to prepare ahead of time. Briedis says expecting people to catch every fake call, message and video is unrealistic. A family code word, saved numbers you trust and a habit of calling back are easier to keep up than constant suspicion.
Eyal Elazar of online merchant security firm Riskified suggests acting as a "digital ambassador" for your circle. Talk with family about what a real call from a bank or insurer would look like, and who lists you as an emergency contact.
If a call sounds like family but asks for money or a code, hang up and call back on a number you already know.
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